Sadness as Bucky Baxter, the man who put real steel into Bob’s act, dies aged 65
Photo of Bucky: Steve Cross…
Steel guitarist Bucky Baxter, who has died at the woefully young age of 65, was an integral part of Bob Dylan’s band for eight years.
He had played almost 100 concerts year since picking up the ‘dream’ gig back in 1992.
In an interview, Bucky, who was playing for Steve Earle as the opener on the Never Ending Tour that year, seems to have had a relatively distant relationship with Bob.
But said that he had grown as a musician after spending almost a decade with him.
The 1992 tour was described as schizophrenic and dogged by rumours of drinking and drug taking.
Certainly it had many faces, variously known as Southern Sympathizer Tour, Why Do You Look At Me So Strangely Tour – that was in Europe – The One Sad Cry Of Pity Tour – in Australia and West Coast America. It ended up as the Outburst Of Consciousness Tour.
Bucky told Scott Marshall of b-dylan.com: “We’d opened up a whole tour for Bob with Steve Earle and he asked me to get him a steel guitar, so I bought him one in Nashville and gave him some lessons.
“Then when that tour was over he got my phone number and, I thought, ‘Well, cool, I’m going to get this great gig.’
“But then he never called.”
Sounds about right for Mr Dylan who can sometimes make his old mate Van Morrison look smiley!
But two years later the phone rang and Bucky – called Bucky after a cartoon character with similar hair – was given two days to prepare to join the Australian leg.
Bucky, originally from Melbourne in Florida, admitted that before joining the band he hadn’t been a particular fan of the wandering troubadour, particularly his singing.
He said: “I wasn’t crazy about him – but I like his singing a lot more now that I’ve actually worked with him.”
He also played on Time Out Of Mind which won a Grammy as album of the year, but declined to talk about the time he spent with Bob in the studio.
“Nah, I don’t want to talk about that,” he was quoted as saying.
But Bucky did say he grew as a musician ‘because Bob lets you do whatever you want, you know, experiment’.
Bucky, born in Melbourne, Florida, in 1955 lived in a cabin in White’s Creek, Tennessee.
His son, Rayland Baxter, confirmed he had died in an Instagram post.
No cause of death was given.
Rayland posted: “He is my everything and now he is an angel. My heart is broken yet I am blinded by joy.”
TAGS: #bobdylan #buckybaxter #neverendingtour #steelguitar #RIP #timeoutofmind #sadness #melbournefloriday #1992
Photo of Bucky: Steve Cross